


Down at the Cubicle Farm

by richmahogany



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 21:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1662434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richmahogany/pseuds/richmahogany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just out of college, Amelia dreams of running her own bookstore. But for now, to make ends meet, she has to take a boring data entry job at a large IT company. Between unreasonable bosses, unfriendly co-workers and mind-numbing tedium, this could well become the First Job From Hell - if it wasn't for that quiet little guy in the cubicle across the aisle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down at the Cubicle Farm

**Author's Note:**

> No plot as such, more a series of vignettes from Harold's last few weeks at IFT.

Amelia did not expect much from her first day at work, and she was not disappointed. She arrived at nine o’clock as instructed, but was made to wait for half an hour before her supervisor could be bothered to collect her and take her upstairs. Mark – that was his name – wore a pink-striped shirt, a garish tie, and an air of “this had better be quick, I’ve got more important things to do”. He duly dumped her at a secretary’s office, where she waited, again, to be issued with a badge and various administrative documents. Next she was taken to the cubicle which was to be hers, and told to wait some more, until someone designated as “the IT guy” could come along and set up her computer. She had assumed that an IT company like this would be full of IT guys, but it seemed she had to wait for a particular one. She passed the time by checking the drawers for any stationery left behind by the previous occupant, making a chain out of paperclips and folding a crane out of one of the administrative documents. When “the IT guy” had finally done his job two hours later, she felt she was ready for her first task. However, her supervisor was nowhere to be seen. Well, at least now she had the internet to keep her entertained. Between surfing the web and trying to locate her boss, she walked around among the cubicles to get acquainted with her workspace.  The cubicles were arranged in a square, with crossing aisles between them. Not all the cubicles were occupied - the one right across the aisle from hers, for example, was empty. There were a few proper offices with doors around the perimeter, and a break-room with a kitchenette, a table with chairs around it and a lower table with a couch and a couple of armchairs. There was no one in the room at the moment, but a coffeemaker was burbling on the kitchen counter. Great – at least in this respect she would be provided for. Amelia helped herself to some coffee and went back to her cubicle, where she waited for the rest of the day for her supervisor to resurface.

***

The next morning Amelia arrived a few minutes early, hoping finally to start work properly. She saw that the cubicle opposite hers was now occupied. A man was sitting at his computer, typing rapidly, and concentrating so hard on whatever was on his screen that he didn’t notice her. She sat down at her own desk and switched the computer on. Shortly afterwards her supervisor turned up and finally gave her something to do. It was every bit as boring as she’d expected – she was given a bunch of data in one format and told to enter it into a database in a different format – but she knew what she had signed up for, so she couldn’t complain now. She sighed inwardly and started typing.

The next few days were not much better. Amelia suspected that Mark had not supervised anyone before and didn’t quite know how to arrange her workload. He either gave her some small task that would take her a couple of hours, and then vanished for rest of the day, leaving her to twiddle her thumbs. Or he buried her in work and was astonished when she hadn’t finished it by the end of the day. She didn’t get to know any of her colleagues either. Mark hadn’t bothered to introduce her to anyone, and most people she encountered seemed to think her beneath their notice. Some of them would vaguely say “hello”, but most of them just ignored her. A few times she had met the guy from the opposite cubicle in the aisle, and he had acknowledged her with a formal “good morning”, but he barely made eye-contact either and he certainly didn’t talk to her. At least with him she didn’t think he did it out of rudeness. She got the impression that he was a bit shy. She had noticed that he walked with a pronounced limp – maybe that’s what made him so reserved?

Well, so what if nobody cares about me, thought Amelia. She didn’t care about this job either. She would put her required hours in, earn some money to keep her afloat, until she managed to find a job she actually wanted to do. This wouldn’t last forever.

***

This attitude got her through the rest of the week and back to work again after the weekend. She had just settled herself at her desk when her supervisor came into her cubicle. “I won’t be here tomorrow,” he announced, “but I’ll get Harold to supervise you.” He motioned for her to follow and strode imperiously across the aisle. Without a knock or a greeting of any sort he entered the opposite cubicle, whose occupant looked up rather startled, eyes wide behind his glasses. “This is Amelia McBride,” Mark said without preamble. “You know we’ll all be at the team building exercise tomorrow, but since you won’t be going, you’ll have to supervise her for the day. I’ll set her up with a task for tomorrow, just make sure she gets it done, okay? Great!” And, having managed to be rude to both of them in one sweep, he marched out of the cubicle and disappeared down the aisle.

The man looked at Amelia, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Well, Miss McBride…” he began.

“Please, call me ‘Amelia’,” she said quickly. “‘Miss McBride’ reminds me of my least favorite teacher. Besides, I don’t know to call you anything except ‘Harold’.”

“’Harold’ will do,” he said. “I was going to say, I hope you are comfortable with what you are doing, because I don’t know if I can be much help. I have been given no information whatsoever.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Amelia. “It’s not exactly complicated. I didn’t know about this team bonding exercise until just now. I guess I’m too new to take part, but why are you not going? Are you not part of the team?”

“Oh, it’s all scrambling across rugged mountainsides and crossing ravines on rickety rope bridges,” said Harold. “They spare me that these days.”

“Wouldn’t it be a much better team exercise if they had to find a way to carry you across somehow?” As soon as the words had left her mouth, Amelia wished she hadn’t said them. Always the same mistake, she silently berated herself, making jokey remarks before I know if the other person actually has a sense of humor. What if he thinks I’m making fun of his handicap?

Indeed, Harold’s face was entirely serious when he said: “Best keep that idea to yourself, though, or I might have to go next time.”

Well, at least he didn’t sound offended. Amelia was still unsure what to think, though, so she just said, slightly flustered, “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” and went back to her own cubicle.

***

Harold’s supervision consisted of looking into her cubicle twice to ask how she was getting on, and once to offer her some tea, which he duly prepared for her in the break-room. He didn’t engage in conversation, though, and after a minute he left her there to return to his work. He seemed to be very preoccupied with whatever he was doing, and didn’t really take any breaks himself. Amelia thought that he probably had a deadline looming and had to work extra hard to make it. He was still at it when she left, and didn’t even notice her “good-bye”.

The next day everyone was back in the office, except Harold. He didn’t show up all day, and his absence prompted a few remarks in the break-room.

“I see Harold is taking another one of his personal days,” Sandra, one of the secretaries, said pointedly.

“Oh come on, it’s not really his fault,” replied her colleague Monica. “I think he still has problems because of his accident. He probably has to go to the hospital for check-ups or something.”

“Why, what happened to him?” asked Amelia.

“Well,” said Monica, relishing the opportunity to gossip about someone else’s misfortune, “nobody really knows, because Harold never talks about it. But about a year ago he was involved in some horrible accident. He must have been really badly injured, because he was off work for months, and he’s been crippled ever since, poor guy. I think he finds work quite hard sometimes, and he has to take a lot of days off, for, I don’t know, therapy or something.”

“If he finds work too hard, he shouldn’t have come back, that’s my opinion,” cut in Sandra. “Just because he’s been here forever doesn’t mean he should get special privileges.”

“He can’t be doing too badly, or he would have been fired already,” was Monica’s opinion. “His boss has got it in for him, anyway, so if he didn’t make some contribution, he wouldn’t have lasted this long. He wasn’t exactly a go-getter before the accident, was he?”

At this both women laughed, and then went back to work without paying Amelia any further attention.

When Harold came back the next day, it was obvious why he had missed work. Something had happened to him. There was a large bruise on one side of his face, and he was limping so badly that he had to use a cane. He wouldn’t explain what had happened, though. All he would say was “It’s not as bad as it looks,” and bury himself in his cubicle to evade any further questions.

Amelia suspected that he had been mugged. She could well imagine that someone like Harold – barely her own height, not exactly powerfully built and unable to run away – would look like an easy target. Nobody wants to appear as an easy target, and so, on top of being hurt, Harold was probably embarrassed about the incident and didn’t want anybody to know about it. She just hoped he was going to be more careful in the future. He seemed to be a nice guy – well, he was certainly the most polite person in the whole place – and she didn’t want to see him hurt. She didn’t want to see him embarrassed either, so she respected his privacy and left him alone.

***

Thursday was such a bad day that Amelia seriously considered jacking it in and resigning immediately. To start with, it had been raining non-stop since the small hours of the night. She overslept and had to rush to work without breakfast, which always made her grumpy. Then she had to endure a dressing-down from Mark, because she had entered her latest batch of data in the wrong order and had to do it all again. She went back to her cubicle seething. It wasn’t really her fault anyway, her instructions had been extremely vague. She decided to make a detour to the restroom to get some breathing space. As she turned the corner, she saw Harold coming the other way, still leaning heavily on his cane. He gave her his usual “good morning”, but today he also gave her a shy little smile. Suddenly the day didn’t seem quite so bad to Amelia. She had no special connection with Harold, but just the fact that someone in this cubicle-strewn circle of hell smiled at her made her feel better. He was definitely the nicest guy around here, even though he very much kept himself to himself. It was enough to stop her from giving up on humanity altogether.

***

Amelia was sitting on the couch in the break-room, sipping her coffee and reading a book. She didn’t much care for the usual break-room conversation, which was mostly gossip about people she didn’t know. She had more or less settled into her job by now, but she still didn’t like it much, so she hoped that a little comfort reading might cheer her up.

She looked up and saw Harold sitting down in one of the armchairs.

“Good book?” he asked.

“Very,” she replied, holding it up so he could see the title.

“‘Northanger Abbey’,” he read. “That is a good book. Though maybe not my favorite of hers.”

“You’ve read ‘Northanger Abbey’?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

“And you’ve read enough Jane Austen to have a favorite?”

“I’ve read all of them.”

“Wow!” she exclaimed. “I thought guys didn’t read Jane Austen. You should have heard the boys in my class complain when we did ‘Pride and Prejudice’. So which one is your favorite then?”

Harold thought about this for a moment. “Probably ‘Sense and Sensibility’. But I’m very fond of ‘Mansfield Park’ as well.”

“Wow,” Amelia said again. “You know, Jane Austen is totally my favorite author. I wrote my thesis on her. Never thought anyone in this place would read her as well. Now I don’t feel so alone!”

Harold smiled at that. “Did you study English, then?” he asked. “What exactly did you write your thesis on?”

“Yeah, English literature. My thesis was on books and reading in Austen. You see, it’s books all the way with me.”

“Yes,” said Harold, “I can certainly relate to that.”

Amelia still hadn’t gotten over her surprise. She had thought Harold to be a middle-aged version of the nerds she had known at high school – weedy types with thick glasses who didn’t communicate except with their computers. This particular nerd however appeared to have hidden depths.

“I always thought computer geeks didn’t read books,” Amelia told him. “Or they only read science fiction. Or comic books.”

“I read science fiction, too,” said Harold. “A good book takes you into its own world, whether it’s Austen or Asimov. And if it’s a good book, I’m happy to read it.”

“Do you have a favorite author then? Since you already know mine…”

“I don’t think I could name a single favorite author – there are too many I like. But if we are sticking with the 19th century, I’d say Dickens.”

Amelia wrinkled her nose. “I could never get into Dickens,” she confessed. “Just doesn’t do it for me. It’s like it’s supposed to be funny, but it isn’t, you know?”

“Maybe you should try again some time. Wait a few years, and then see what you think. I promise you, the books really are good.”

Amelia was not convinced, but she kept that to herself. Her break was over anyway, and she went back to her cubicle, thinking that Harold most definitely was the nicest guy in this place. Someone who liked books as much as she did – who knew?

***

Amelia let herself drop onto the couch with a sigh. She wasn’t really tired, after all she had been sitting down all morning, but the couch was way more comfortable. Harold was standing at the kitchen counter, stirring sugar into his tea. He – or someone else – had left a magazine on the table. Amelia turned it around to look at the cover, and couldn’t suppress an exclamation of delight. The cover illustration was composed of six little vignettes, each depicting a bird. They were only lightly sketched in charcoal, but with a few sparse lines the artist had managed to portrait each bird’s character perfectly. There was a tiny songbird in full flow, its little beak wide open. Another one was huddled into the crook of a branch, with its feathers fluffed up and eyes half closed, about to fall asleep. A third one seemed to be looking at her, head slightly cocked to one side, with big curious eyes and a funny little tuft of feathers sticking up from its head.

“You like it?” Harold asked.

“Oh, they’re wonderful!” Amelia replied. “It’s like they’re alive! They’re such simple drawings, but they look so real.”

“Yes, she’s very good,” said Harold.

“Oh, do you know the artist?” Amelia asked.

Harold hesitated for a beat. Then he said: “No, but I know who she is. I’ve see her work elsewhere.” He pushed the magazine towards Amelia.

“Keep it, if you like,” he said, “there’s more inside.” He took his tea and went out of the break-room.

Amelia opened the magazine. There were two more drawings in the same style as the cover, one depicting two crows squabbling over some food, the other birds fluttering around a bird feeder. They were just as delightful as the cover illustration. It wasn’t just that the birds were portrayed realistically, they had personalities. It was as if the artist had thought of individual stories for each bird and used them to make each drawing just as individual. Amelia wondered who she was. The name was given on the contents page, but she hadn’t come across it before. She was almost sure that Harold had been about to say “yes” when she asked if he knew the artist, but then for some reason had changed his mind. Oh well, she thought, I guess it’s another of those things that Harold won’t talk about.

***

Amelia hardly saw anything of Harold for the next two weeks. Often he didn’t come out of his cubicle all day, or he went into the break-room only when no one else was there. But then one day he saw her reading “The Mill on the Floss” during her break.

“That’s a nice book,” he said, as he sat down opposite her.

“Oh, you’ve read George Eliot as well?”

“No, but I’ve heard of him.”

Amelia stared at him for a moment, not knowing if he was serious or not.

“Sorry,” he said. “Bad joke.”

“Phew! You had me going there for a moment…”

“Actually, I haven’t read this one. I’ve read ‘Middlemarch’, and ‘Daniel Deronda’. That’s not what I meant though. I was talking about the binding.”

“Yes, I love this book,” said Amelia, brushing her hands over the leather-bound covers and the lettering on the spine. “This belonged to my great-aunt. She was a great reader herself, and she was always giving me books. I guess it’s thanks to her that I’m such a bookworm.” She held the book up in front of her. “When I have my own book store, I’m going to sell only nice books like this.”

“Is that what you want to do,” asked Harold, “run a book store?”

“Yes,” Amelia admitted, “that’s my dream, really. I knew it wouldn’t happen soon, but I had hoped to find work in a book store and learn there what I need to know. And then, when I’m ready and have saved some money, I can open my own store. But no luck. So I’m stuck here, typing stuff into little boxes…”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find something better eventually,” said Harold. “But tell me more about this book store of yours. Do you want to deal in second hand books, then?”

“I don’t really mind, I just want to sell proper books, if you know what I mean,” Amelia tried to explain. “I want books that feel nice, and look nice, so that you want to take them into your hand and read them. But maybe that doesn’t even matter, they might as well be ordinary paperbacks, as long as people do read them.”  She paused, but Harold looked at her encouragingly, so she went on: “I want my store to be the kind of place where book lovers feel at home, you know. I don’t just want to sell books, I want to sell the right books to the right people. I want people to drop in for a chat, to take time to find what they want, and if they don’t know what they want, they can come anyway, and I will give them advice. So when you’re sad, I can recommend a book to cheer you up. Or when you’re in love, I can find you just the right book to give to your girlfriend. I’d have a book club for children – you can’t start them early enough. I’ve got so many ideas…I just don’t know if I can make any of them real.”

Harold smiled at her. “I’d certainly come to your store,” he said. “I don’t think it’s easy to make a living like that these days, though.”

“I know,” said Amelia, “these are all just dreams, anyway. And none of them are going to come true while I’m stuck here.”

“Take it one step at a time,” Harold told her. “It worked for me.” Then he pulled a face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound patronizing. I just wanted to say that you are not stuck here permanently.”

Amelia sighed. “I really hope you’re right.”

***

When Amelia came into the kitchen a few days later, Harold was there, making tea. The water was boiling, then the kettle clicked off, but he made no move to pour the water over his tea leaves. He stood very still, clinging to the kitchen counter as if that was the only thing that kept him upright. He was very pale, and there was a sheen of sweat on his face. He must be ill, Amelia thought. Maybe he had a migraine - she got those once or twice a year, so she knew what that felt like. Or maybe it had something to do with his old injuries. Whatever it was, he was clearly suffering.

“Shouldn’t you sit down?” Amelia asked with some concern.

“I don’t think I can,” Harold whispered.

Amelia looked quickly around, then she held out her arm to him. “Come on,” she said, “there’s no one to see it, and I won’t tell.”

Reluctantly Harold let go of the counter and gripped Amelia’s arm instead. With her help, he managed to shuffle over to the table and lower himself onto a chair. Amelia turned to get his tea, but his hand was still on her arm.

“I have…medication,” he said, “second drawer.”

Amelia nodded and hurried to his cubicle. There were two orange bottles in the second drawer. She took them both and went back to the kitchen. She made Harold’s tea, and put the mug and the two bottles in front of him. Harold’s hands were shaking, but he managed to open one of the bottles and take a couple of pills with his tea. Amelia was torn between wanting to stay and help, and leaving to give Harold some privacy. Actually, she didn’t think there was anything she could do anyway, and she guessed that Harold would rather be left alone. She went back to her cubicle, but decided to check on him after a while. Before she could do that, though, she saw him coming out of the break-room. He managed to reach his own desk without having to grab a cubicle wall for support more than twice. Apparently his medication had at least some effect.

Amelia hoped that Harold hadn’t overworked himself. She knew he had been staying late for a number of days, but he worked quite irregular hours anyway. It wasn’t just that, though. She had had the impression for some time that Harold was under a lot of pressure. Maybe it wasn’t just work, but he often seemed – well, not depressed, exactly, but somehow unhappy or stressed. He had never been anything but friendly towards her, in his quiet and reserved way, but she had often thought that there was something weighing him down, that there was some underlying unhappiness in his manner. Harold wasn’t an easy person to read, but Amelia had always been good at picking up on other people’s “vibes”, as one of her college friends put it.

Harold stayed in his cubicle for the rest of the day, and when Amelia came back from washing out her afternoon coffee mug, he was gone.

Amelia was relieved to see that Harold was back to normal the next day. When she bumped into him in the aisle, he said “good morning” as usual, but he also added, very quietly, “thank you.” Amelia smiled at him. “You’re welcome,” she replied, and that was all either of them ever said about it.

***

A few days later Amelia thought she noticed a change in Harold. She hadn’t really exchanged more than a few sentences with him, but there was something different about him. Whatever weight he had been carrying on his shoulders seemed to have lifted. There still seemed to be a lot of tension, but it was not the kind of tension that had stressed him out before, it was more like – well, like anticipation. Amelia almost giggled when she remembered where and when she had encountered this kind of mood before. This was exactly what her friend had been like when she had signed up to a dating website and started to connect with one of the guys on there. Maybe that was it! Maybe Harold had met someone and was now trying to get a first date. Or maybe he had already been on a couple of dates and was hoping to kindle a more long-term relationship. All of this would of course make him excited and nervous at the same time – exactly the way he seemed to her now.

She had no idea if that was the truth, of course, and she knew she couldn’t ask, but she hoped she was right. Harold could really do with someone to look after him, she thought.

***

The next day Amelia had a dental appointment, and when she came into work later in the morning, she discovered that she had missed the office sensation of the month. Apparently an exceedingly good-looking man had come to the reception and asked for Harold. Harold was late that day, so the visitor – from the description Amelia got, he was the “tall, dark stranger” type so often promised by fortune-tellers – waited in his cubicle. When Harold had arrived, the two had talked for a few minutes, and then the stranger had left again, leaving the whole of the female office population (and probably half of the male as well) in a swoon. Harold, of course, didn’t explain anything and said as little as possible about his friend, or whoever he was.

 

And then, suddenly, Harold was gone.

When Amelia arrived in the morning, his cubicle was empty. That was nothing unusual, he often came in later and then stayed later as well. But something was different that day. Amelia didn’t realize it at first, but it kept nagging at the back of her mind, and after a while she got up and entered Harold’s cubicle. It wasn’t just empty, it was vacated. Harold had never had any personal items on his desk, but there had been a few folders with paperwork, a notepad and some pens. Now everything was gone, and the drawers were empty, too.

During her break Amelia heard some of the rumors going around about where Harold had gone. Some thought he had been re-assigned to a different office. Others thought that he had finally found the work too much for him and resigned. A few were sure he had been downsized. But nobody really knew anything.

Amelia went back to her cubicle, feeling sad and lonely. Harold had been the only bright spot in this dismal place. They had been in no way close, they hadn’t even been friends, but just the knowledge that there was someone who would give her a friendly greeting or a smile, someone who she could occasionally talk to and who even shared one of her interests, that had kept her spirits up and enabled her to keep going with this job for the time being. She had grown very fond of Harold, and she thought that he had liked her a little bit as well. But now? She would be alone now, with no one to relate to in this place.

She sighed and lifted the mug of coffee she had brought with her. It left a wet ring on the desk. Must be one of those days, Amelia thought, and opened the drawer where she kept a box of tissues.

There was something in the drawer that hadn’t been there before. Something in a striped paper bag. She took it, reached into the bag and pulled out a book and a letter. The book was old, smelling slightly musty, but it was beautifully bound in light brown leather. Gold letters on the spine spelt out the title: “Our Mutual Friend”. She took the letter in her hand. This was a proper old-fashioned letter, in an envelope of thick, cream-colored paper, and written with a fountain pen on the same kind of paper in a small neat hand:

“Dear Amelia,

I am sorry that I had to leave so suddenly that I did not get the chance to say good-bye to you, but I have my reasons.

I think you should give Dickens another try – believe me, he is worth it. But I am sure that one day you will discover that for yourself. In the meantime, I hope you will find the book at least aesthetically pleasing.

I wish you all the best for the future. I’m sure you will make the best of your current job, but if you are tired of data entry, you might want to give these people a call. I know it’s a bit out of your way, but if you don’t mind the commute, I think this could be just the thing you are looking for.

Whatever you decide to do, I’m sure you will make a success of it.

With all good wishes,

Harold”

There was a second piece of paper in the envelope, a printed page on ordinary paper. This would probably explain what Harold meant by “these people”. Amelia unfolded the sheet. At the top was printed, in large, colourful letters: “Goldfarb’s Books”. And underneath it read: “Wanted: all-round assistant for small book store. We are looking for someone who is passionate and knowledgeable about books, to help us with all aspects of running our store. You will be required to serve our customers, manage our stock, do some housekeeping, accounts (no experience necessary – training will be given), book repairs (again, no experience necessary), and help with activities such as readings, lectures and workshops. Some evening and weekend work will be required. Must like cats.” This was followed by an address and a phone number.

Amelia stared at the paper. This was it, this was her way out! It sounded exactly like the thing she had been looking for – working in a book store, learning all that was involved in running it, and then, eventually, having her own. This was the first step on the path she really wanted to take.

Thank you, Harold, she thought. She had felt so disappointed when she realized that he was gone, but now, if this worked out, she wouldn’t be here for much longer either. She would give the book store owners a call straight away.

Amelia hoped that Harold had left for something better as well. She had no idea where or why he had gone, but maybe he had had a better offer elsewhere. She knew that he had been with this company for a long time, but he hadn’t seemed very happy here, and she hoped that he had found something more fulfilling.

Perhaps one day, when her dream had come true, Harold would come into her book store. Then she would find the best book in the world for him, exactly what he wanted and needed at that moment. And that would make both of them happy.

 


End file.
